This is a trip report about our recent trip to Club Med
Cancun. This was our second trip to this Club (and about
our 10th CM trip overall). Before the report, I should
point out that my wife and I had decided to go to Cancun
during this specific week and contacted our primary Travel
Agent, Hal Segal/LeBeach Club. It turned out that this
specific week was "Salsa Week" at CM Cancun, and Hal's
"SalsaCruise.com" was also offering additional salsa lessons
and activities for an additional charge. Since the cost,
with the additional activities, was still less than we had
expected to pay, we signed up for the extra activities. We
figured that if the weather was bad or the wind too low for
sailing, we could participate in the Salsa activities. As
it turned out, the weather and wind was great so we didn't
get involved in the activities, but the other people who did
seemed to enjoy the lessons and dancing. But, since we
really did not get involved, I won't really comment much
about the Salsa activities.

We made our own airline arrangements, using Delta
Skymiles points. Both flights were on time, comfortable and
we had no significant problems or delays. On our return
trip, other airlines had long lines for check-in, but at
Delta/Aero-Mexico we were second in line and got through in
very quickly.

The only problem at all was on arrival in
Cancun when multiple flights arrived at one time, causing a
long delay for Customs processing. Still, it took "only"
one hour from flight arrival until we were headed to the
Club Med. There was construction in the Customs area, so
perhaps things will get better.

The Cancun Airport

Club Med Cancun layout

A brief review and description of the Cancun Club Med is
probably in order. The club was the first of the modern
Cancun resorts and has the best possible location on the
Southwest end of the beach strip. It has a nice beach which
is protected from the heavier surf.

Around a rocky point is
the reef and snorkeling area. It extends about 500 yards,
then around the next point is the windsurfing and sailing
beaches. These are a bit rocky and not good for swimming,
but great for sailing and windsurfing (water shoes
recommended). The club probably has a total of more than a
mile of beach which wraps around three sides of the resort,
the forth side is a lagoon area, opening into the larger
Cancun lagoon.

The CM is rather unique in Cancun in that
there is significant acreage and the grounds are lushly
landscaped and there is no feeling of being at all crowded.
Looking at the other resorts while walking on the beach
makes it plain how different the CM really is. All
buildings are 2 or 3 stories high and are barely visible
above the trees surrounding the buildings.
The club is getting a little old.
Although it underwent a renovation a couple of years ago,
the mechanical components are aging. We did have an A/C
problem on arrival which was quickly fixed, but we heard of
other problems which were not so quickly corrected. Since
the club was completely full this week, there were no rooms
available to move affected people to. It was kept clean and
well maintained; housekeeping was good. There was also very
significant and noticeable security. There were guards at
every building and maintenance people were accompanied by
security guards when entering any room.

Example of the lush landscaping

We go on vacation to sail, windsurf, snorkel, eat, and do
some sightseeing. We go to Club Meds because we have found
that they consistently have the best of these facilities.
Cancun did not disappoint. Although CM/Cancun offers a
good Tennis program, water-skiing, beach and pool
activities, an active bar scene, and significant late-night
activities, we did not participate in these pastimes, so I
won't attempt to report on them. I'll break the rest of
this report into facilities, sports, food, entertainment
activities and general comments.

Facilities:

The club is showing it's age a bit, but is generally well
maintained. Everything is kept clean and the grounds are
well landscaped and groomed. The rooms are fairly basic,
and not large. They do now all include cable TV (about 20
channels) and telephones (although we had problems with
their message system). We had been rather specific about
the type of room we wanted and where we wanted it and got
everything except one part... We had requested a king bed
and got two twins. Not really a big problems for a couple
who have been married over 30 years... I knew what to do. I
moved the night table out of the way, and pushed the two
beds together. From then on the maid made it up as one
large bed... It just had a 'crack' down the middle. Many
of the common areas are open air but there was a nice breeze
most of the time. If you sat in the middle of the 'theater'
it could get stuffy though. And the seats in the theater!!
Some of the most uncomfortable I've experienced. The metal
'bleachers' in the back of the theater were more
comfortable. The main restaurant is air conditioned
but it could not really keep up with the heat of the cooking
and the full crowd so the after dinner coffee was just not
comfortable. Guest (GM) rooms are in 2 and 3 story
buildings scattered around the grounds. Some people
complained about having to walk to much but we didn't find
it a problem. The reception, bar, pool, main restaurant,
theater, boutique and most other 'offices' are all in a
central area.

Sports.

As I said, we enjoy sailing, windsurfing, and snorkeling.
Although not great, the wind was sufficient to both windsurf
and sail every day.

There was a good selection and quantity
of windsurfing gear, although I did have to settle for a big
'beginner' board a couple of times instead of my preferred
328. They had plenty of trainer sails, but a little limited
in the larger sizes and only the heavier Aerotech rigs.
Equipment was reasonably well cared for and the GOs were
very helpful and friendly. (One of the GOs, Kenny, was at
Columbus Isle last Sept. when we were there, so we got off
to a fast start.) There is a very good area for teaching
beginning windsurfing and the instructor GOs seemed to do a
good job. If you are interested in learning to windsurf,
this would be a good choice, but take water shoes.

Windsurfing Area

Club Med Sailing area: Hobie Waves and Lasers

The sailing area has about 6 or 7 Hobie Waves ('safe'
catamarans) and three Lasers (small, exciting, mono-hulls).
These were some of the best maintained boats I've seen at
any resort.

Grek, the chief of sailing, immediately fixed
any problems and took obvious pride in "his" boats. While
I would much prefer Hobie 16s or 15s, the Waves are good
safe 'resort' boats that don't take a lot of maintenance,
are easy to handle, and hard to tip over. The Lasers, on
the other hand, are much more exciting and are intended for
more experienced sailors. I would have liked to see a
larger 'sailable' area, but it was enough. Although the
club was completely full this week, we seldom had to wait
for a boat, although partly because we could take either a
Hobie or the Lasers.

The main problem with sailing and windsurfing was caused by
the fact that the snorkeling area just off the Club Med is
the best in the Cancun area. Several (many!) tour operators
run snorkeling tours and these tours use wave-runner or
similar size boats to shuttle people to/from the snorkeling
area. This means that every couple of minutes a stream of
from 4 to 15 small boats, driven by people who have never
done this before, cut right through the middle of the
sailing and windsurfing area. These people blindly follow
the boat in front of them and most have no idea that
sailboats (and windsurfers) are less maneuverable and have
the right of way. A few larger boats also go through,
making rather large wakes.

I can certainly understand why they go there to snorkel
though. Along the southern edge of the resort is about a
1/2 mile of very good snorkeling reefs, just a few yards
from the shoreline. The tours only use about 100 yards of
the reef, and they do appear to feed the fish so there is a
large concentration of fish there. The Club Med Snorkel
facility is toward the other end of the reef area. The Club
provides equipment and leads 'guided tours' through the
reefs in that area. We had our own equipment so we went in
the Club Med snorkeling area, in the 'snorkel tour' area and
in between. It was in the 'in between' area where I saw a
large Morey and a very nice Leopard ray glided peacefully
right below us.

Snorkeling area with the little boats

Food

It seemed strange being served Mexican food by a chef
named Francois. I didn't know whether to say 'gracias' or
'merci'. We have found that Club Meds that cater to
primarily North American GMs don't have quite the quality of
food as the more international locations, and this was true
at Cancun. The food was good, and we certainly ate our
share, but the spices and variety was a little lacking. We
made liberal use of the various sauces and 'add-ons' and did
quite well.

Main restaurant: central hot food area

As usual, each night was a different emphasis
or theme, and we enjoyed them all. I did have one
complaint: the salad chef appears to be very fond of green
pepper and it was in almost all prepared salads. I don't
like Green Pepper and it doesn't appear to like me.
There are two restaurants and both operate in buffet style.
The main restaurant has the normal (for Club Med) group
tables for 6 to 10 people. La Palapa is a smaller open air
restaurant on the beach next to the windsurfing area. It
has tables for 2 or 4 and you must make reservations
ahead to eat there. We ate there twice and enjoyed it.

Breakfast and lunch was at the main restaurant, with a late
lunch available at La Palapa. Food at La Palapa was
comparable to the main restaurant, perhaps slightly
better, but the salads were not as overloaded with green
pepper. There was less selection at La Palapa, but still
plenty to choose from. It did have one other significant
advantage: it had a selection of good ice creams while the
main restaurant only had a 'soft-serve' machine. As
mentioned earlier, the air conditioning was not quite up to
the requirements at the main restaurant.

La Palapa restaurant

Entertainment

In our previous Club Med visit and this one we have observed
an apparent effort to upgrade the entertainment. While not
as elaborate as some of the shows at Columbus Isle last
year, there seemed to be more emphasis on entertaining with
a quality show rather than the prior rather childish
affairs. Because of the salsa activities at the club this
week, there were some emphasis on dancing, and some of it
was very good. The current Chef de Village was Gus, from
Australia. Gus is a very talented person, and participated
in most of the evening entertainment and many other
activities. He did a very creditable job singing and an
excellent job on the fiddle actually playing "When the Devil
came to Georgia". There was the highest participation in
the Crazy Signs dancing that I have seen in a long time.
Perhaps it was due to the salsa crowd, or just that
the club was completely full. In any case, it was good to
see. Although we did not check it out, I understand the
disco was very active and the foam party one night seemed to
receive high marks from the participants.

Other

We took one off-club excursion, the one to Chitzen Itza,
the largest Mayan ruins on the Yucatan peninsular.

Chitzen Itza Pyramid

It was a
2 hour bus ride and the GO tour guide helped pass the time,
then gave everyone a chance to catch up on some sleep (we
had to get up at 6:15). We had a very nice tour of the
ruins on a rather hot and dry day, keeping to the shade
whenever possible. Anyone with the slightest interest in
archeological sites should take this tour.

But one of the
best parts came after the tour. After 2 and 1/2 hours in
the hot and dry site we were all very hot, sweaty, and
tired. Rather than get into a bus and ride two hours back,
we walked about 100 yards outside the site entrance to the
Club Med Chitzen Itza archeological village. There we
changed into swim suits and jumped in the pool for a perfect
refreshing cool-off.
In a little while a very nice buffet
lunch was served, complete with entertainment. After lunch
and time to relax around the pool, we re-boarded the bus and
headed back, stopping at a 'Mexican art' store (souvenirs)
and to visit a historical town and church. The Club Med
village facilities turned a run of the mill, hot tour into a
most enjoyable and memorable experience.

Club Med Archological Village

Other Comments

While Gus (the CV) was very talented, it seemed that he made
a better Chief of Animations (entertainment) than Chief of
the Village. We never saw Gus around the village during the
day talking to the GMs; although were at the sailing and
windsurfing areas almost continually, we never saw Gus in
that part of the club. He did not seem to 'mingle' at all,
and I see this as an important CV function.

Cancun is known as and promoted as a young singles crowd
resort, and there were plenty of young people and lots of
singles. Couples and older people should not be concerned
that they will be out of place. There were plenty of
people in their 40s (and older) and everyone seemed to have
a good time. I would suggest that Cancun is a good resort
for active people of any age or martial status. Inactive
people or those who have trouble walking distances might
want to consider a more compact resort. I would guess that
about 80% of the GMs were from North America, 5-10% were
from Latin America, and the rest from Europe, so there was a
very strong North American emphasis, for better or worse,
depending on your viewpoint.